Banning Conversion Therapy: Good Intention But...

California just became the first state to ban conversion “therapy” for minors. That’s “therapy” which attempts to “cure” people of homosexuality, same-gender desire, or gender non-conformity, “converting” them to heterosexuality and “normal” gender behavior.

My regular readers know that I have been a licensed psychotherapist for 32 years—about 35,000 sessions with men, women, teens, and couples of all kinds. And I mean ALL kinds.

I am totally AGAINST reparative or conversion “therapy.” Under all circumstances, period. It doesn’t work, and it’s bad for people.

But I am pretty queasy about this new California law banning conversion “therapy” for minors, or the suggestion that adults have to be notified about the lack of evidence supporting conversion “therapy” before they do it.

Every single day, the best therapists—including me—use conventional, accepted therapeutic modalities that have no evidence supporting their efficacy. And every excellent therapist has occasionally done a terrific, thoughtful job with a patient, only to watch in dismay as one or another intervention has had terrible, unexpected results.

Then there are the less-than-excellent therapists who do therapy with modalities and interventions that are perfectly legal—and theoretically bankrupt or morally corrupt.

In virtually none of these situations does the State intervene and say “that kind of therapy is illegal with minors, or can only be done if you tell patients there’s no efficacy data behind it.” Why privilege the obviously egregious modality of conversion “therapy”? Why provide protection for one part of the patient population, but not the rest? Why challenge the problematic work of a small sliver of professionals, but not the rest?

And finally, do we really want the State intervening in these admittedly troubling and even damaging situations? In most of the country, we’re already fighting a losing battle to keep State legislators out of the patient-doctor conversation when it comes to abortion.

Therapists deal with pretty serious situations in addition to issues regarding sexual orientation. To pick just a few, we deal with teens who are suicidal, adults recovering from rape, and parentsgrieving their dead children. California has no special guidelines for our interventions in these cases, other than the standard Code of Ethics.

Again, see my first sentence: I’m totally against reparative or conversion “therapy.” I just question California’s dramatic, single-minded intrusion into a therapy profession which lacks efficacy data for virtually anything we do.

You want to protect children? Start by requiring every therapist to learn about healthy childhoodsexuality—totally missing in most training programs. Then require that every single social service, police, or legal interview with a kid discussing possible molestation be videotaped, and make the tapes available to all parties in any litigation.

You want to protect people with non-conforming sexuality? Require all therapists to learn about alternative sexualities. And challenge the use of training materials claiming that people like S/M because they’ve been abused, or claiming that people’s domination-oriented sexual fantasies change and become “healthier” when their past sexual trauma is resolved.

Many other therapy practices far more common than conversion “therapy” lack any efficacy data whatsoever, including:

* Molestation: Describing patients’ early experiences as sexual molestation, contrary to the patients’ own interpretations, is common. Patients and their families continue to be destroyed by therapists applying extraordinarily broad definitions of “molest” to common, non-hurtful family situations.

* Infidelity & affairs: Many approaches rigidly valorize monogamy; encourage punishment for the betrayer; and support the betrayed partner’s desire for the betrayer’s email passwords, cell phone records, and detailed descriptions of exactly what the betrayer did hour-by-hour—destroying the dignity of both partners and preventing the rebuilding of trust.

* Therapy focused on prayer, visualization, energy work, reiki, crystals, chanting, etc.. If your patient buys it, you can do it. If you’re licensed, you can call it psychotherapy.

The California law’s meta-message—”there’s nothing wrong with your kid having whatever sexual orientation s/he has”—is valuable. But State interference with one kind of (rather uncommon) irresponsible therapy—without touching other, more common forms of undocumented therapy—is a rather heavy-handed way of reshaping social norms.

The American Psychological Association, among others, has deemed conversion “therapy” quackery. That’s good news for everyone. By singling out and challenging this modality, California’s legislature is implying that most conventional therapy is both documented effective and safe. Unfortunately, that’s just not true.

I think you opened up a box of worms that you dont want answered. Myself, being a psych major, find many therapies lacking. This includes drug and alcohol, suicide prevention, and depression. If I were to be honest, I would say that most therapy just like drugs should come with the facts and possible downsides. If psychiatry/psychology allowed itself to be better tested by real science, maybe the majority of people whouldnt think it was such a joke.

The researchers behind the conversion movement need to go away. I want them to leave gay people alone and all of society should scorn them. And gay people, from my view point you need to just keep being cool. I am gay, gay as a blade, and i dont want to change.

Why require adults who seek "conversion therapy" be shown a disclaimer? Will there be a disclaimer for any other kind of therapy with no proven, lasting results? (What would be the "success rate" we'd expect from each type of therapy? 10-15%? Is there any indication this EVER happens?)

It's interesting how the debate focuses so much on the providers of these services. What about the clients? If their orientation causes them such problems, is it morally wrong if they try whatever might work? We let people seek out cosmetic changes to make themselves feel better--even though a man with a wig is still bald. It's not the perfect analogy, but the broader point is that homosexuality is the ONLY thing in society which CANNOT BE QUESTIONED OR TREATED, period.

Then there's the whole "spectrum" concept of sexuality. If sexual orientation really exists on a spectrum (sounds accurate to me), can't most men/women short of a 5 or 6 on the Kinsey Scale (so a 2, 3, or 4) work to adopt a full heterosexual lifestyle? (Or, I suppose, vice-versa?)

Also, I've seen so much discussion about how orientation is fluid and changes over one's lifetime. If it's fluid, why can't you make a conscious effort to steer the direction?

Fine, I get that the sexual orientation debate is geared primarily toward social acceptance of gays, lesbians, etc. But aren't psychologists, to some extent, sacrificing the potentially counter interests of individual clients at the altar of this chosen social agenda? And isn't this a BAD thing? Psychologists are not sociologists, nor should they be.

We can clearly see that how our society is facing psychological disorder today and for all this the only thing that should be blamed is our system. Some of my friends at assignment doer are also suffering with similar disorders and only blame the system because it is all the teachings and result of this very capitalist system.

Having not much idea about the therapy i would say that the ban on a therapy can be abnormal act. However, some specialists whose researches are published at Aoneessay may not agree with the idea of banning therapy.

How about passing laws requiring psychotherapists to issue blanket disclaimers to their patients, Such as: "Nothing that we do has been proven to be effective or safe." Or, "We make no guarantee that your disorder will be cured, or that we will correctly diagnose your disorder." That would cover not just gay conversion therapy, but all the other mumbo jumbo that you mentioned.